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At Avacal’s September Crown, one of the classes I took was a beginner blackwork class with my Barony’s former Baroness (who also does super-beautiful embroidery!). I haven’t done blackwork before, partially because it looks so complicated, but also because I’ve always thought it was a bit later than any of my main costuming personas.

If you have followed my posts on the Historical Sew Fortnightly(Monthly) challenges, you might notice that I haven’t posted anything for October – Sewing Secrets yet. And… I won’t be any time soon either. Likewise, I don’t anticipate meeting the deadline for the November – Silver Screen challenge either. I have a really good reason…. which I’ll share by the end of November or early December I hope.

August 14-16 was SCA Sergeantry Trials, and as part of it, one of the organizers was hosting an Artisan’s Village. I opted in (along with a number of others) and the original plan was to have a bunch of pavilions/sunshades etc with tables all together where all of the artisans could hang out, do demos, chat with people, and show off what we did.

I haven’t been to one before, so I kind of thought about it a lot, and made lots of plans- figuring out how to bring my pavilion, making a gear loft to hang a lantern from, getting big bins to carry my things so they could double as tables, making a banner-kind of thing so I could hang stuff from my pavilion, rigging up a collapsible shelving unit thing that could hang from the pavilion, and making a banner to “advertise” my part in the village.

Then on the ride up.. it started to rain. And rain, and rain. Saturday it rained, and Sunday it rained too… (Plus it was cold!) When we got there we were told that the ‘village’ was moved inside, and it ended up only being a few of us, tucked into a separate room from the main activity. (The main activity needed quiet from time to time, which was totally understandable.)

It kind of shook me really… I had something so ‘organized’ in my head, and then felt shaken up when it all kind of went sideways.

In the end, it was set up, and I spent some time there, some time volunteering at gate, and some time visiting with other people. I think I like the IDEA behind the ‘village’ (with a few more people than participated) so hopefully it will happen again, at an event I’m able to attend, with better weather!

A&S display at Avacal Sergeant Trials, with my device banner on the end

Before I went, I wanted to check out what I might expect – I looked up Artisan’s Village events from a few other areas, including: